Lobo arranged for a private jet to fly Krone from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to Tucson, where a driver took him to the Ventana Canyon Resort. Though it was late October, the sun was shining in the vast blue sky. It was perfect weather for golf, and Senator Bishop was about to tee off on the third hole of the Mountain Course. He was there with Jeff Wilson, the Republican nominee for the 8th Congressional District, along with a Secret Service agent and two influential donors who had organized the thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraiser for Wilson’s campaign.
The Republicans hoped to regain control of the United States Congress, and this was one of the races they were banking on to get their majority. Polls showed that Wilson trailed the Democratic incumbent, Alicia Alvarez, by six points. The hope was that an endorsement from Senator Bishop—not to mention the contributions from that evening—would be enough to push Wilson past Alvarez.
Krone tipped the driver handsomely and walked into the lobby, which was filled with middle-aged men in golf shirts and khaki pants, as well as beautiful women wearing designer clothes and expensive jewelry. It was no doubt a gathering of Tucson’s elite—doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs, as well as a television anchor whom Krone recognized from one of the twenty-four-hour cable news stations.
“So much for the impartiality of the press,” he said under his breath.
Krone thought about posing as one of the housekeepers, or even as a waiter delivering room service, but with the Secret Service agents hovering around the senator’s room, there were too many eyes. Better, he thought, to wait for the dinner, where things could be more discreet.
He spent the rest of the afternoon at the bar, where he watched television and enjoyed a grilled portabella mushroom sandwich with avocados and sprouts. The news was focused on the reactor leak in Iowa. All across the Midwest, churches, homeless shelters, and even a chain of health clubs had opened their doors to take in displaced families.
As the afternoon lingered, the bar started to empty. People went back to their rooms to get ready for dinner, leaving Krone alone with the bartender. He looked down at his watch. The wait-staff was set to meet in the Grand Ballroom in ten minutes, so he finished off his bottle of sparkling water and paid for his tab in cash.
As Krone walked across the grounds back toward the main building, he pulled out his phone and opened an image of the employee he was going to impersonate. Israel Sandoval was a twenty-three-year-old college graduate who had recently been accepted to the University of Arizona medical school. He was handsome, like a Latin pop star, but more important he had just moved to town. That meant he hadn’t been on the job long enough for anyone to grow accustomed to the nuances of his inflection or body movement.
That afternoon the real Israel received a call from his supervisor. According to the Secret Service, employees who hadn’t been at the resort for at least three months weren’t allowed to work the event. But the person on the other end of the call wasn’t his supervisor at all. It was Krone.
Krone walked through a service door and into a winding labyrinth of hallways. His skin started to bubble, and for a moment it looked like it was melting. Bone cracked and cartilage shifted, his blue eyes faded to brown, and his hair grew longer. In the blink of an eye, Krone became a living replica of Israel Sandoval. And short of a blood test, no one other than his mother would know the difference.
He removed his watch, cuff links, jacket, and tie, then placed them all in his briefcase, which he hid behind a bin of white tablecloths. Then he rolled up his sleeves and walked into the employee locker room.
A heavyset man in his early twenties greeted him as though they knew each other. He had a mass of red hair and he was trying to fasten a cummerbund around the girth of his stomach. He wasn’t having much luck. Krone forced a smile as he nodded and waved. It was best to avoid talking whenever possible. Mimicking other voices had always been the most difficult part of the job, and even though he had listened to tapes of Israel talking during his flight, Krone wasn’t sure he could pull it off on such short notice.
He walked over to the rack of uniforms hanging across the back wall and found the one with Israel’s name pinned to the jacket. He changed into a tuxedo with a black bow tie and matching cummerbund and listened to the banquet manager, who was flanked by two Secret Service agents.
“Can you believe this?”
Krone turned to see the man with the red hair standing next to him, smiling.
“I mean, Senator Bishop is the first presidential candidate I ever voted for. Do you think they’ll fire me if I try and get a picture with him?”